


fountain pen

by orphan_account



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M, i dont really know what this is, just give it a shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1203544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(alternately titled 'the past is building my future (or else i'm just nostalgic)')</p><p> </p><p>  <i>if i had sent a letter to the future, would you have stayed alive to read it?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1.

hey gerard,

it’s been a month since you left, so i thought i’d write you. i know that’s not the proper way to start a letter, but whatever. i never was the greatest english student. you know that. remember ms. mackenzie, and how she would always call my writing too ‘violent’ and yours too ‘gothic’? hahah, i even read those words in her voice. that was the first class we ever had together for a full year. we only had history and math for half the year in junior high, ‘cause i moved over from cali halfway through the year. i should probably stop reminding you of all this stuff; you were there, after all. i’ve become like that recently, really nostalgic and shit. next thing you know, i’ll be going on about the ‘good ol’ days’.

i just realized i’ve forgotten to use capitals in this letter. oh well. just another ‘whatever’, i suppose. my whole life has just been a chain of ‘whatevers’ since you left, a chain that keeps growing longer and longer like that creeping ivy that used to grow on the brick wall in your backyard before we tore it down when we snuck in at three a.m. in sophomore year. was that a run-on sentence? i’m trying my hardest to make sense, gerard, believe me. i’m hoping you understand this, or at least the gist of it, when you finally get it, because you were the one who knew me best and if anyone will, you will.

anyway, back to the letter. they held your funeral a week ago. the public one, back here in jersey, for all your friends and schoolmates and art buddies and other sorry suckers who never cared much for you when you were alive but suddenly do now that you’re dead. dead to them, at least, because they didn’t know you well enough to question the story. but i did, gerard, and i know you’re alive. i know that this is all just one of your elaborate plans, the kind you’d build into your comics, so that you can escape all the whispers and stares and rumours and start again. don’t get me wrong, gerard, i don’t resent you for it. i’m just telling you that i...well, i know. that you’re alive and well and just living somewhere else, somewhere new as someone new. i don’t know where that is or who that is, but i’m still hoping this letter will reach you. if the ‘new’ gerard, or whatever name you’re going by now, remembers me, you’ll know where to find this.

i know you’re alive and that you faked it because we talked about it. remember? (god, i have got to stop saying that.) the week before you upped and left, when we were sitting in those creepy woods where the cool kids get drunk on friday nights but is abandoned every other day of the week. we always said we were going to come up with a name for that place. we never did. i remember i was talking about a documentary i watched last winter, when i was holed up with pneumonia, about a guy who faked his death and started a whole new life. we started talking about how badass that was, and how it would be easy enough to do, really, and then you started plotting how you would do it if it were you. this was about three weeks after my mom had banned me from seeing you, and four weeks after the newspaper article ran. things were getting pretty bad, then, and i remember you looked really tired. not just sleepless-nights tired, but been-through-the-metaphorical-wringer, soul-tired. it worried me, and i think you noticed because you made an extra effort that day to seem like your old self. like things were normal. things were never normal, gerard.

when we were talking about the whole new-life thing, i remember how adamant you seemed. how sure of yourself. i was just joking around, but you were serious. and at the time i thought it was just a really great joke, that you were just mimicking emotions as seamlessly as you always do, but i realized when i heard the news that you were actually serious. and you went ahead and did it, you crazy son of a bitch. only you could, really. mikey may be the ‘genius’ of your family, but you’re the clever one. street-smart, i guess they would call it. you could rig the elections so batman was voted in as president if the inspiration came to you, i think. 

i don’t know just because of that one conversation in the creepy woods, though. it’s everything else, too, everything surrounding your death. you know those cop shows where they’re trying to solve a case, and the detective has nothing but a hunch pushing him on, but he follows it anyway just because something doesn’t feel right? this is like that. nothing feels right about it, gerard. the way your family are acting about it. the story they gave us about it. the way only close family were allowed at the first funeral, the one where they actually buried you, and the way they refused to move your body back to new jersey and buried you in kansas because of ‘money troubles’. i mean, i know your family aren’t rich, never were, but, shit gerard, you’re gonna kill me for this but you’re a momma’s boy. you loved your mom, and she loved you, and i know she would never let you get buried in some strange place you ran away to. she would bury you in your hometown, where you grew up and she raised you, even if it meant spending the last penny in her pocket. mikey, too, would want you buried here. none of it’s right, gerard, none of it, and it’s starting to eat at my head. i’m questioning nearly everything. i almost interrogated my mom on her motives for bringing me pancakes in bed this morning.

now i’m starting to sound crazy, even to myself. hah, funny; they always said being around you would turn me insane, but only now that you’re gone do i really seem to be losing my head. it’s funny how things turn out that way. i’m joking, of course. i’m no more crazy than i’ve ever been. so no need to send me a motivational speech that sounds like it’s been taken straight from the mouth of a pop-punk frontman. because i know you would.

(if you could, though, it would be nice to get a reply. anything, gerard. even if it’s just a blank piece of paper.)

i’ve forgotten how to end a letter properly, too. so bye.

\- frank.


	2. 2.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i've just filled the shoes you left behind, i suppose._

hey gerard,

it’s been a week since i sent that first letter. i haven’t had a reply back yet, but i didn’t expect one. i’m not even sure if you got it, but even if you did, i’m sure you’re far too busy to reply right away. starting a new life must be tons of work. you’re used to that, though, right? you always had crazy art deadlines, and you always managed to make them, too. i remember that time you slammed the door right in my face one night because you had an entire comic strip due the next day. even when i tried to bribe you with beer and potato chips, you still didn’t open it. i called you a stubborn bastard, but you managed to finish the strip, and it was one of your best, i remember. wasn’t it that ‘pacific girl’ strip, which won that one award that time? i think it was. i can’t remember.

it was my birthday yesterday. nineteen years old. the big one-nine. it’s not really big though, is it? it’s just one of those in-between numbers, like nine and fifteen and seventeen. the ones that aren’t really big enough to warrant a huge song-and-dance about, but they precede the ones that do. i didn't do anything for it, really - i had breakfast with my mom, who gave me some money, then went out to buy some college supplies. i was supposed to start college in late september, but took some time off because...well, you know why. i start for real next week. so does mikey.

he came round today, mikey, and asked if i wanted to go and hang out at your guys' place. well, i suppose its just his place now. it was kind of awkward, at first, walking there with him. silence isn't normally a physical thing, but i think in that moment it was, because it hurt like hell. the newly frozen ice melted eventually though, but it took me standing in some dog shit and mikey laughing at me and me calling him a bitch. your mom was at the house when we got there. she was cold as ice; she took one look at me and disappeared somewhere. i didn't see her again. i think she thinks i made you do it or something. i kind of wish i had done it, had made you run away, because at least then i would know where you are right now. (i know whereever you are right now you're wondering how badly i got my ass kicked by mikey in halo. as usual, pretty bad.)

my mom brought up seeing a therapist at dinner tonight. i used to see one when i was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, before i moved here, remember? i told you that. i hated her. i never really understood why i had to see her, either, because i felt perfectly fine. i still do, and that's what i told my mom. she's worried about me. well, she's always worried about me, but more than usual now. i didn't think she knew i was still seeing you after she told me i couldn't, but maybe she did. i think that's a mom thing, you know? they just kind of...know things about you. pick up on things. i think i once told you that you could do that, too, gerard. not that i'm calling you a mom or anything.

i don't think my mom believed me, so i probably will start seeing someone. i know that i'm nineteen and technically a legal adult, and that i don't have to listen to mom, but i don't want her worrying. she already worries about dad enough, working late hours as a cop and all. he hasn't spoken to me much since you left. i wonder if mom did know, and she told him. maybe he's just worried i'll go off at him, accuse him of being the reason you left. i don't think i have the motivation left for going off at people, but everyone else thinks i do. is that what it was like for you, after the article ran? people that barely even knew you always assuming things of you? that you were going to do something that was barely even acknowledged as a mere idea in your head? it sucks. a lot. but it makes me wonder why people do that, why people like to think they know others. i think it's to cover up that we don't even know ourselves, really. we're scared of not knowing, so we pretend that we do.

honestly, i wasn't going to write you another letter. i don't really want to be a bother, or mess up your new life or anything. but things have been lonely here. people keep avoiding me, looking at me like i'm some alien or asylum escapee. i guess that's what it must've been like for you. i've just filled the shoes you left behind, i suppose. only mikey is really still treating me the same, but he's as good at hiding things as you are so i can't help wondering if that's really real. anyway, i'm going to keep writing you, even if i don't get a reply. i don't know why, really. i guess it just makes me feel less alone, like you're still here with me. i'm not sure how often i'll be able to write, with college and everything, but i will. something tells me, being the weird kid starting a month late, i'm not going to fit in too smoothly there either, so i'm sure i'll find the time.

i guess i'll see you when i see you, then. or, rather, not see you, because this is a letter and not a hologram (wouldn't that be cool, though?). i'm not even sure what you look like now, but you're great with hair dye so i'm sure it's something different. if you write back, please tell me.

seeya.

-frank.


	3. 3.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _please write me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry this is late!!! i've been super busy with school and assessments and life in general. i'll try to get them out faster. :-))))

gerard,

look, i know i’ve already written you today, but i have to again. i can’t take this anymore, gerard. i can’t take it. i know i haven’t told you and you probably think everything is fine everything is normal i am normal i am fine i am fine but i’m not. gerard i’m really not. fuck. fuck. my hand is shaking. fuck. okay, here we go.

i told you about my paranoia, right? (is that the word?) i think it was in the first letter. the first. right. okay, anyway, maybe it’s worse than i said (wrote?). maybe i’m starting to feel alone and targeted and maybe i don’t trust anyone. except you, gerard. which is so so so dumb because everyone says you’re dead and everyone believes you’re dead and everyone knows you’re dead but you’re not. i know you’re not, gerard, but i can’t tell them that because they’ll think i’m crazy just like you. because i was friends with you. and i’m not telling you this is your fault and i’m not saying it is and i hope to fucking god you don’t think it is because it’s not, gerard, it’s not. you know what they’re like. what this whole fucking town is like.

i hate them all. every last one of them.

fuck. i think i broke my pen. fuck. i shouldn’t have pressed too hard. i hope you can read this past the ink (why the f u ck is it spurting so much?). it’s 1 a.m., gerard, and i couldn’t sleep so i went out to the woods and i found that flask of whiskey we hid in the rotten log. it felt like old times, like you were actually there next to me walking with me talking with me and that nothing had ever happened. i swear i could almost smell you, goddammit. i miss you so much gerard. so much.

i can’t tell anyone about my paranoia (i’m almost completely certain that’s the word). i know if you were here you would make me, any way you could, make me tell someone. or tell them yourself. but i can’t, gerard. they’ll put me in an asylum. or do what they did to you. they’re halfway there already, the fucking bastards, and i don’t think i could take any more than this. fuck fuck fuck. my mom’s home with her newest boyfriend. they’re drunk. i turned out my light so they won’t disturb me (i hate it when she’s drunk). i hope you can read this, gerard, because i’m writing this by the light of my phone. its blue, electronic blue, and it feels like static t.v. in my head. fuck. i’m off topic. back to what i was saying - i can’t tell anyone. i just can’t. i agreed to go see that therapist my mom suggested, and she was practically fucking ecstatic (they’re in the bedroom now. my ipod’s roaring in my ears.) so maybe i’ll tell her. some of it. not all of it. never all of it. only you can know this, gerard, ok? because you understand. you understand everything because you’ve done everything and you’ve seen everything and you are everything. please keep this a secret.

i drank the flask. i think the sun’s been shining on it somehow, because it tastes stronger than i remember. please write back. i miss you.

-frank


	4. 4.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _fuck._

the music and the static and the electric light and the darkness is all one and i think i rely on you too much.


End file.
